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A Poussey gif was promised, and a Poussey gif you shall have.

Damn, I can’t even with her face. Seriously. Get me my smelling salts. Position my fainting couch. Refresh the page.

Piper is attempting to convince Nicky that she’s not a lesbian to get everyone off her ass re: all that loud sex she and Alex are having. I mean, a lot of us aren’t technically “lesbians,” but that doesn’t stop us from having loud queer sex, honey. Anyway, since I don’t actually identify as any of the labels being thrown around in this conversation besides “horny,” I’ll leave the identity politics to the comment section. I look forward to your comments re: serious identity politics on this show. In the meantime, Nicky and Morello are 100% sure that Alex and Piper are on like Donkey Kong, and Alex and Piper are pretending that they are 100% just friends hanging out. Hanging out in each other’s orifices, though? Prison seems like an awfully small place to pretend you’re not doing the in and out, specifically the in and out of each other’s excited vaginas. Maybe Piper wants to join the softball league?

it’s just coincidence the act is named for the most lesbian sport of all time

Bennett is lifting when Cesar busts in on him lifting some weights. Yes, Cesar, the drug lord previously involved with Daya and Daya’s mother who eats macaroni and cheese in his Superman underwear, has somehow found out where Bennett lives and has a singing telegram for him. It’s “You’re The Father” sung to the tune of “You Da One” by Rihanna. Cesar is a talented son of a gun. No, but actually Cesar is not pleased with the strength of the Bennett seed and Bennett is surprised to hear he still had the Miracle Grow in him.

DO YOU EVEN LIFT BRO

Piper and Alex are canoodling in the rec room. Why play board games when you can fondle ass? That’s my family motto.

even if you haven’t been exclusively snapping fingers below the border if you know what i mean

The funny thing about getting back together with your ex — and ladies, let’s not even pretend we as a community don’t do this all the goddamned time as if we were receiving checks in the mail for it — is that of course it feels comfortable and easy. You have an established routine. You spent months together building this routine. Sure, you walked away from it, but it’s like moving back into your parents’ house. You know which cabinet the peanut butter’s in because you spent years knowing where the peanut butter is, even if you also spent years living away from the house with the cabinet with the peanut butter. So yeah, you can get back together with your ex. Of course it feels easier than a new relationship or even, GASP, being on your own because your bodies and your emotions recognize one another just like they’d recognize any other habit-forming activity or substance. Getting back together with your ex for the nineteenth time is kind of like crack: of course it feels like your body wants it, as your body and mind have formed a dependency on this familiar comforting thing. Does that mean it’s good for you? No, it’s crack. And what is crack?

Speaking of things that are wack, Piper wonders aloud why Larry hasn’t called in a while. Alex is like, wow, I couldn’t be more lesbian flaccid if you were boiling my dildo, but also claims that she and Piper are just doing what they can to get by, and sleeping with a lady behind bars doesn’t make you a bad person. Alex Vause, professional container of murky ambiguous morality. For those of you who need a reminder as to why Larry isn’t calling, it’s because Healy called him, and we assume he told Larry that Piper and Alex are responsible for mutual and consenting nasty. So.

Apparently the inmates participate in Scared Straight, which I’ve just learned does not involve being afraid of heterosexuals. Wish someone would have corrected me after all these years! In my defense, heteros are scary, and I’m still not sure who gave them all the social power.

Pornstache wants his ice cream bars from Red. He is really fucking serious about getting this ice cream as soon as fucking possible. What a guy! But dependency on ice cream can get really intense in prisons and is a serious issue — I saw it on this great documentary about a family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together:

Note: A 7 hour break was taken in the writing of this recap to watch the second season of Arrested Development after the banjo intro song kept playing over and over again while the author of the recap was searching for and subsequently posting this gif. It was necessary.

Tricia wants to be one of Red’s little helpers again, but Red isn’t taking the betrayal well. This triggers none other than a FFFFLLLAASSHHBBAACCKK to Tricia’s past on the street. Tricia keeps track of everything she steals in a little book because she wants to pay everyone back when she can. Young Tricia, you’re somehow even cuter now. I didn’t think that was possible, but it is.

the first stage of incurable lesbianism is the intense desire to make purchases at whole foods

Back in the present, Sophia is doing Miss Claudette’s hair because Miss Claudette has a gentleman visitor. My stars, her excitement is adorable.

Piper’s brother Cal who I previously forgot was her brother and thought was a family friend or something because I don’t know, is on the phone with Piper. He tells her that he’s about to go skeeting with his bangin chick of a girlfriend who I already love, also Larry. Not that Cal and Larry are bangin, which would probably be a narrative I’d get behind and want to see fleshed out, since Cal getting behind Larry’s flesh and coming out sounds great. Anyway, Cal thinks Larry should call Piper. Larry is not so sure about that.

Piper’s mad Larry hasn’t called. Tricia’s mad that Mercy hasn’t called. Wait, Mercy hasn’t called? Mercy said she’d wait for her. Tricia was counting on it. They were in puppy love! Damn it, Mercy. Don’t kill the only semi-healthy lesbian relationship on this show. Don’t be that Debbie Downer on us, Mercy. We ask for so little.

So we’re to assume that Alex is not the only lady in her past? Coolio. Plus Piper went to Smith and uh, well…yeah. I’ll let all you Smithies and fellow Seven Sisters fill in that gap. Because everyone knows we’re good at filling in certain gaps. Anyway. Piper says she likes ’em crazy! Well, honey, you came to the right place, because ain’t no relationship like a crazy lezzie relationship. We’ve got it all: synced periods, crying at the same time, throwing tampons at each other during arguments, having intense feelings about Rachel Maddow. Plus we tend to go fucking nuts! It’s a non-stop fun time. Polly thinks that Piper should aim for the safe and easy route. She does know you can be attracted to someone who is neither insane nor a doorstop, right?

Outside, Bennett is grilling Daya on why she hadn’t told him about the Bennett bun in her toasty little oven. Bennett could be charged as a sex offender because he’s an officer and she’s a prisoner. Also, a baby? In here? Obviously there are some reservations with the whole situation. Good thing neither of them took health in the ninth grade and learned about some basic preventative measures to keep this kind of shit show under wraps. Literally, you have to wrap it up. I don’t even have a dick and I know this, dude. Daya’s mother comes over to add her opinion to the mix, which is that Bennett lost his leg at war which means he must be getting some kind of money, but no, Bennett cuts in, he lost his leg due to a hot tub infection so-

Wait. You can lose your leg due to a hot tub infection? Remind me to never go into a hot tub again. Sober, I understand that a hot tub is little more than a breeding grounds for every nasty bacteria thing known to man, plus we’ve all peed in hot tubs, you’ve peed in hot tubs, I’ve peed in hot tubs, your infant cousin has peed in hot tubs, it happens. But. Oh my god. I WebMd’d it and it’s a thing. No more hot tubs for me.

i googled “evil hot tub” and this is what happened

Pornstache tries to get Tricia hooked again to control her. Pornstache says she owes him for the drugs in the past, even though she was “paying” for them via oral sex, and now she’ll need to sell to get him back. She doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Booboo!

Doggett is doing some good old-fashioned faith healing. Everyone is watching because this is probably the most entertaining thing going on today. Watson pretends to get her knee healed to fuck with Doggett. So that’s going to be a thing now, which is about the equivalent to hitting a hornet’s nest with a baseball bat. Piper thinks Doggett deserves whatever she gets.

and a very active presence on the tumblr social justice scene

FLAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHBBAAAACKKK. It’s that Larry is plant-sitting at Polly’s house. Plant…sitting. Piper lets herself in because she got bit by a dog and Larry gives her a hand. Turns out they’re supposed to go to the same concert tonight and why don’t they go togetherrrrrrrrrrrrtyuiop. Oh, sorry, fell asleep on my keyboard. Literally that bored by heterosexual interactions.

oh my god stop

Morello continues to run her wedding and honeymoon by Nicky like that’s a comfortable alright a-okay thing to talk about with the person you’ve been receiving large quantities of fist from in lieu of your fiance’s presence. She wants to go to Bora Bora Bora, which I’m 99% sure was a body spray I had from Bath and Body Works in 2001. Morello wants to then talk about how she misses sleeping with Nicky but can’t do it anymore. Nicky spits some hard truths about Chris, Morello’s boy toy, never visiting or giving a shit. Unlike Nicky, who would probably haVE taken a shit during intercourse if that was a thing they were into.

Now everyone is fucking with Doggett re: faith healing. Boo pretends to be cured of her gayness because guess what isn’t even working for her anymore?

Tricia is clearly not okay. She wants to make right with Red and she’s not hearing back from Mercy and Pornstache is being his usual dick self and putting her in danger. Oh, honey. You deserve so much better than what’s coming to you. Pornstache notices and locks Tricia in a closet since she’s so eager to talk to Red, and he thinks his new drug scheme might be in danger.

Flashback to Tricia of the past, trying to pay a store back for headphones she stole. Oh honey, she’s trying! The store obviously has an issue with this and while they’re kicking her out, she steals a necklace. Guess who’s waiting for her outside? The popo. Oh, honey.

The inmates could not be more excited to scare the living shit out of the Scared Straight kids. Sue is reciting Shakespeare. I am so 100% on board with everything about Sue’s character. Poussey is told she has to go scare the girl in the wheelchair. Turns out the girl in the wheelchair has her own gang and plans on fucking shit up once she gets to prison. In a Scared Straight plot twist, Poussey is scared by the Scared Straight young’un!

Over in the rec room, Doggett’s healing abilities are seemingly on fire with the sweet and gracious light of the Lord Baby Jesus as everyone is pretending to be healed by her.

The Scared Straight kids are getting a tour of the bathrooms, which is actually the scariest thing they could be shown, lezbihonest. The inability to poop in privacy would probably drive at least 3 or 4 people out of the desire to go to jail. Everyone is telling the kids that Piper is the one you wanna watch out for, or she’ll shove quinoa down their throats and make them listen to Fresh Air. JK, they’re pretending she’s a nasty mean lesbian who runs the joint. Girl gang leader, whose name is Dina, thinks it’s all an act, specifically the lesbian part. She’s probably going to make a tumblr post about label politics later.

Tricia’s still in the closet when Pornstache finds her, and she’s overdosed on the bag he gave her to sell. Oh, honey, no.

Piper attempts to be nice to Dina, but Dina reacts with some choice expletives. Well, Piper’s had enough of the whole “how my sexuality has gone over in jail so far” thing, and she breaks it down to Dina.

i don’t know why netflix chose to place its subtitles there but i’m still laughing

Everyone’s overheard and is simultaneously impressed and terrified.

don’t…don’t ever say that again honey

Pornstache makes Tricia’s death look like a suicide. I was crying during this part because everything about it seemed so unfair and dehumanizing and usually this show has no consequences and then oh, death. God, I fucking hate Pornstache. And it’s a real kind of hate, not the Larry is so irritating and I wanna hit him in the nads hate.

Doggett is saving Dina in the bathroom per Piper’s bogus request. That seems unusually cruel on Piper’s part, but she did just get called a “bitch faggot dyke” so. Bennett walks in on this, freaks out, maces Doggett, and then sends her to the psych ward.

who often feels like a mawrter, being surrounded by gays all the time

Tricia’s body is found, and ruled as a suicide. Everyone is extremely upset by this development. Healy almost says something about how much lady touching is happening as the women attempt to comfort each other, but even Caputo thinks he’s out of line. Good. Keep it that way.

Nicky goes to Red to say that Tricia didn’t hang herself, but overdosed on Pornstache’s drugs. Red and Nicky both feel guilty and responsible for Tricia’s death. They’re back on good terms again and ready to be a team with a mission. Because if it’s the last thing Red does, Pornstache is going the fuck down. Amen, sister.

I have no idea what to say about the scared straight scene. Sue was priceless, but everything else was really uncomfortable.

And Doggett. The faith healing thing was funny for a minute, mostly because I have a parent who is 100% that brand of religious and it felt cathartic to laugh over it instead of being as annoyed as I typically am. When she was in isolation though, I felt bad for her for basically the only time in the series. There’s some commentary there re: how the prison system deals with mental illness.

So, did I read it wrong or was Piper totally stoned during the “dog bite” flashback? Or maybe just very sleepy, or about to pass out from the pain? Or already bored to death with Larry after just meeting him? I was seriously waiting for it to be adressed by one of them, but I guess the last hypothesis is the right one and Larry didn’t comment on it because he has that effect on everyone.

I loved that they challenged the “disabled people are all helpless children and/or angels” stereotype by having Dina be the most badass of the kids, and I loved Poussé’s (accent à droite bitch!) awkwardness at trying to scare her.

I was totally distracted during the “dog bite flashback” by the fact that they were both supposedly going to see the Hungry March Band, despite the fact that the Hungry March Band is way too radical and anarchist for Piper and Larry’s yuppie politics. At least it wasn’t the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, I guess.

Well I’m actually French, and when I was a kid we did call the “accent aigu” and “accent grave” “accent à gauche/droite” because it was easier to remember and less confusing, and some adults still call them that way. (I’m a bit ashamed to say that the aigu/grave thing confused me for a long time ’cause they actually sound opposite of what their names imply. It just doesn’t make sense!)

Still though, she says she’s named after a town in France, and I can find a Poussey, France but not a Poussé, France, so I’m still not sure why she says that. I guess just ’cause it’s funny, and I’m a wet blanket. I’ll go now.

Thank you for bringing the LOLs in this recap to an episode that, on my birthday, I got drunk off pink champagne and watched twice a row sobbing about Tricia / real life Tricias / how I could never look good with blonde hair OR cornrows but Tricia does because she is a beautiful flower of a person.

Also thank you for the Rihanna mention, and for reminding us of Natasha Lyonne’s moment of comedy gold that I would later re-enact repeatedly to a crowd of my straight friends at a bar, met with general confusion.

So glad I’m not the only one who was caught halfway between gut-wrenching cringe and boredom-induced coma by the “Gravity works very strongly on me” plant-sitting scene. If her relationship with Larry was that exciting I’m really not surprised she swung towards crazy monkey prison homosex to compensate.

i took it as a hilariously-delivered deadpan joke moment, although rewatching it again just now, i’m not sure.

it didn’t make me cringe as much as the little michael jackson dance piper did for miss claudette. i had been thinking of the show as a cross between oz and scrubs except without the little slapstick setpieces (from scrubs, not oz), and then they slotted that scene in. groan

I personally loved the delivery. And the MJ moment. These, and maybe chasing the chicken, are some of the only moment’s where we don’t see Piper taking herself way too seriously. I think these little moments where you’re kind of embarrassed for her make her way more relatable.

Polly: He’s never shown any interest in fucking me in the ass, for which I am grateful
Piper: Well, you never know, he may just be saving that all for marriage
*Polly’s horrified face*

The episode shows that relationships formed outside or inside of prison don’t last when one of the partners is incarcerated: look at Morello and her fiancé who no longer visits her, Mercy who’s stopped calling Tricia when she got out and of course the lack of communication and understanding between Piper and Larry. It’s pretty depressing.
I’m not one of the Larry haters (even though I dislike him, I sometimes get where he’s coming from) so I found the flashback about how Piper and Larry met very interesting. Like, Piper comes in and takes her pants off in front of that guy she just met and then you can almost see the bubble “nice, stable guy” popping above her head. I still ship Piper and Alex like crazy obviously but I totally understand why Piper was initially attracted to Larry.

The episode shows that relationships formed outside or inside of prison don’t last when one of the partners is incarcerated: look at Morello and her fiancé who no longer visits her, Mercy who’s stopped calling Tricia when she got out and of course the lack of communication and understanding between Piper and Larry. It’s pretty depressing.

–> Kind of reminds me of long distance relationships. You guys promise this and that and you think about how ‘normal’ everything will be despite the circumstances but then it’s like eventually everything turns into this horrible routine.

I agree with you that there’s something up with Healy, given the scenes with his wife & his interactions with Chapman, but I have no desire to see flashbacks for him. I don’t need to know how he got to be a lesbian-phobic prison officer. I’d rather have that screentime used for another character we don’t have a lot of background information on, like Suzanne or Flaca.

– They don’t speak the same language
– They don’t have anything in common
– She clearly hates him, it is her mother who pushes her
– How they were supposed to meet and bond under regular circumstances?
– He has a strong sense of entitlement over piper (women in general?)
– Remember how he punishes her over Alex?
– Remember how he decides over her head to out her to Larry?
– He also tries really hard to appear as the good, the educated, the civilized one
– Bastard is probably just masking his human trafficking shit

But I hope, the show has another explanation because that plot device would make me really uncomfortable.

I think I’m with ZenW on this one… We’ll have to wait until season 2 to find out. But its also suspicious that he gets SO upset with Caputo calling him “Samantha”… Dont you think? So VJustin hypothesis of him being trans, kinda makes sense too. Idk.

It might be in the next episode, even… it’s a small moment. I’m currently watching the second time through… =p I never watch tv seasons more than once. I almost never even watch tv shows, ever. I love this show.

In terms of identity politics and countering them, I loved the moment in the WAC elections episode when they tell Piper that each race “tribe” gets to elect a rep, and she’s like “but not every Hispanic person wants the same thing” which is a great way of ripping identity politics in half in one sentence.

However! The word Hispanic is colonial and a bummer, but since she’s White and Piper it makes sense that she used it and that’s just my own Latina PSA for everyone on here.

However, Kate, my butch LordQueen, I want to caution your uses of the words crazy and insane that were happening there for a minute in conjunctions with being a lez. Tone it down on the mental health shamez!

Hugely agree!
(SPOILER) that scene where sue asked piper why everyone calls her crazy eyes broke. my. heart. (END SPOILER)
And as a person with mental health problems myself I do wish sometimes AS writers would be more careful with that.

I absolutely fucking DIED when Nicky delivered her “softball” speech to Piper – “And by softball I mean two in her front, and then one in the butt,and then just eating her pussy a lot cause you like it so much. And playing with her titties…”

This one definitely goes into the “things my friends would say that I NEVER expected to hear on TV” category. Natasha Lyonne is my hero. Her delivery of that line is just priceless.

I’m probably going to be considered a terrible human being, but I enjoyed Piper’s gaslighting of Doggett with Dina in the bathroom. I liked Piper’s speech, and the aftermath was just sweet revenge.

Obviously, though, Doggett’s stay in psych was horrifying. I don’t condone that kind of treatment. I’m glad the show is touching upon a lot of the evils of the prison system, so if people were uncomfortable with Piper “sending” Doggett to psych (which she didn’t have any control over), then at least we can recognize the plot advancement to talk about something very real and very scary.

I loved Piper’s speech (although not her “bitches gots to learn”) and while psych was horrifying, 1) gaslighting or not, as we see later, Doggett clearly needs to be there, as a danger to herself and others, and 2) while Piper gave the final shove, is everyone forgetting this was Alex’s plan? Are we just forgiving it cause she’s hot like with her rape threat? 3) Piper had much less control over “sending” her to psych than Doggett had on actually sending her to SHU. Sweet revenge indeed.

1. Nicky’s softball speech is easily the best line of the entire show. My friends and I quote it (complete with the proper hand motions of course!) on a regular basis.

2. Re; all the debate about Doggett in last episode’s recap, this is the episode where I started to feel actual sympathy for her, and subsequently reassessed my previous opinion of her from the first 9 episodes. The gaslighting thing was funny for a while (Boo was hilarious!) but it gets scary, fast. I don’t think it’s Piper’s fault, she had no idea Bennett would send Doggett to psych, or that Doggett would literally assault Dina, and as we later learn, she has no idea what psych is actually like (because she’s Piper and has no idea about anything). I also don’t think Alex ever explained the endgame of the gas lighting prank to Piper – I think Piper thought it was just about making her look foolish, whereas Alex’s endgame was to get her sent to psych (and I think Alex knows what psych is like). Thus, her being in psych and everything that happens to her in there is squarely on Alex’s shoulders. Doesn’t make me like Alex any less (oh man I fall HARD for smoking hot villains) but it definitely brought out sympathy for Doggett I did not know it would be possible to feel back in ep. 8.

Thank you! I honestly think that, just like the rape threat, we are forgiving Alex without really considering what she did. Which was plot to send Doggett to psych. Knowing, I’m sure, exactly what that entailed. I agree that Piper never followed the plan to its conclusion and just thought of it as a prank because she is Piper and never considered the possibility that the system would allow psych to be awful. But Alex did. The worst part is, she knew how awful it was and STILL thought of it as a prank. Why do we forgive her so easily?

How do we actually know that Alex knew how bad it was? It seems to me she got there around the same time as Piper, so she may not actually know. And I’m not entirely sure if the plan was to get her sent to psych or just to fuck with her and make her lose her faith, which was the most important thing to her. Either endgame is pretty shitty though. I don’t excuse Alex, but I do prefer her ways of fighting to those of Tucky, because I was physically bullied and had property estroyed as a kid, so those types of things are way more triggering for me emotionally. Same with Red and the starving out. That bothered me more than anything else I saw on the show, even the ending.

I thought she knew how bad it was because when Piper went and told her, not only did she not blink, but she laughed that Piper was even telling her. And she is much more street savvy. So although I don’t think she knows the particulars (because only Sue has ever come back) I do think she’s aware that a state Psych ward is going to be awful in its treatment of patients.

I have to admit the psych scene was scary but then it clearly depicts the reason she needed to be there. For all we know she has some underlying disorders that aren’t being addressed. These prison systems man.

I’m so sorry I don’t have some sort of sympathy for Doggett. This is coming from a psych nurse’s POV.

You know what I think I like the best about this show? And why I have basically let it take over my every waking moment nowadays… All the women at my buttoned up, corporate, conservative place of employ are obsessed with it too. They earnestly debate the pros and cons and ups and downs and shipping of the lesbian relationships like they were the hetero relationships they’re used to discussing… THE FUTURE IS NOW.

Yes, this. This show has the most refreshingly real and honest way of dealing with topics that are still pretty much taboo to discuss on regular television except in the most sanitized way, like sexual orientation and race. The way characters just talk and joke about same-sex relationships and lesbian sex and the issues of being a person of color in a predominantly white culture is something that’s rarely ever been seen on TV before. And the way the show’s PR team continues to highlight those things in their Twitter quotes and such is also pretty awesome. OitNB is quietly doing a lot of groundbreaking work here.

What? This is so not okay! She and Piper are the backbone of the show, I can’t even…

For one, how can they write her out of prison? A transfer, maybe? Get her sent to max? But she played such an important role in season 1, like I can’t even imagine the show without her. And she loved the project so much, I don’t know why she wouldn’t sign on for another season. Just… wow.

I put off watching this episode because I knew what happened to Tricia and I’m still sad about it, she was such a sweet character and had such a tragic life. On a shallow note, the actress who plays her is so gorgeous that even with the cornrows I still couldn’t handle how hot she was.

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